# WhispAssist v0.5.2

**Privacy-first, Windows-native meeting assistant — everything on-device, nothing leaves unless you say so.**

A small but important bug-fix release. v0.5.2 fixes a startup crash that could stop WhispAssist
from opening after an upgrade, and makes any future database problem show a clear message instead
of failing silently. No feature or privacy changes — everything optional stays off-by-default and
local-first.

One universal installer (**MSI** and **NSIS**) covers every machine: **Vulkan** for all GPUs
(NVIDIA/AMD/Intel), the Intel **NPU** (OpenVINO), a **DirectML** fallback, and **CPU**.

---

## 🐛 Fixes

### Fixed: app failing to launch after an upgrade
On some machines, upgrading could leave the app unable to open at all — no window, no message,
just nothing. The cause was a database-migration mismatch during startup: WhispAssist would hit
the error while opening its local database (`wa.db`) and, because the failure happened before the
window existed, the process exited silently and Windows reported only a generic crash.

### Startup database errors now explain themselves
Instead of that silent exit, a failure to open `wa.db` now shows a **native error dialog** naming
the problem and pointing at the database location, then exits cleanly. Your recordings and notes
are never touched — the message tells you exactly what happened and how to recover, rather than
leaving you with an app that won't start.

---

## 📦 Install

**Requirements:** Windows 10 or 11 (x64). WhispAssist needs **WebView2** (preinstalled on Windows 11;
the installer fetches it on Windows 10). Importing from a file/URL additionally needs **`ffmpeg`**
(and **`yt-dlp`** for URLs) on your PATH — install those separately.

1. Download **`WhispAssist_0.5.2_x64_en-US.msi`** (or the NSIS **`WhispAssist_0.5.2_x64-setup.exe`**).
2. Run it and accept the UAC prompt. If SmartScreen appears, choose **More info → Run anyway**.
3. Launch **WhispAssist** from the Start menu.

On first run WA picks the best transcription backend (**NPU → NVIDIA → AMD → Intel → CPU**). It runs
without admin rights, never adds itself to startup, and keeps all data under
`%LOCALAPPDATA%\WhispAssist`.

## 🔐 Checksums (SHA-256)

```
b173b6b15590a65e96d3b24d0ad97666b8d1da905169d807ecc1c51df0584d3e  WhispAssist_0.5.2_x64_en-US.msi
441b2e7ec7c68be39f9d2381af59ab9eadf916d6d23d0c5541d78bdd88c588b2  WhispAssist_0.5.2_x64-setup.exe
```

Verify after download:

```powershell
Get-FileHash .\WhispAssist_0.5.2_x64_en-US.msi -Algorithm SHA256
```

---

## Privacy, unchanged
Everything optional is **off by default**. With nothing configured, WhispAssist makes **no content
egress at all**. Recording is opt-in; sync/AI credentials live only in the OS credential store; the
MCP server is loopback-only and adds no egress. The reachable-host allowlist is derived from your
settings and enforced in the core.